Late Pianist Becomes King of Bling

He certainly knew how to sell a song. And the late piano pounder Liberace, who billed himself as Mr. Showmanship, parlayed his over-the-top image into a very lucrative second career as a pitchman, creating a clothing line, a motel chain and a series of cookbooks and sponsoring all kinds of businesses, from insurance to cars and food products. "If I am selling tuna fish, I believe in tuna fish," the shameless salesman once said.

Now, however, the venerable Liberace Museum, located for nearly 30 years in a Las Vegas strip mall, is having a tough time selling tickets. With about 50,000 visitors a year, attendance has dropped to half what it was at its peak. "His audience is slowly dying off," laments the director of the museum's foundation.

So enterprising devotees are stepping up their efforts to bolster the glitzy Liberace legacy. With his outrageous bejeweled costumes, his piano-themed homes and his mirror-tiled Rolls Royce, marketers see a golden opportunity to cast the campy icon as the King of Bling.

Fame Farm, a licensing company run by former costume designer Karan Feder and her husband, Michael, is helping the Liberace estate restore the luster in the showman's famed candelabra. The museum's gift shop now features a cornucopia of collectibles, including a new line of fancy footwear called Liberace Kicks and a popular book of paper cutouts called 'Liberace: Your Personal Fashion Consultant.'

When she first visited the museum a few years ago, Feder tells the L.A. Times, it was apparent that Liberace "was a very dead celebrity." Money-wise, as she's showing the estate, that's usually the most productive kind.

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